MRF Encourages Its Biking Community On Social Media To Create Music With Bikes

MRF has rolled out the MRF NV Mix. It is an online platform created by their digital agency Experience Commerce to give serious and casual bikers a chance to express their love for biking in the most unique way, where bikers are invited to create songs using biking sounds.

Objective –

This activity of launching the online platform and linking it to music using bike sounds is aimed towards launching of the MRF NV tyres, a series of tubeless tyres for high performance bikes with displacements larger than 150-cc. A creative way for bikers to express their passion by mixing raw biking sounds, creating their own music and sharing it with the world.

Execution –

Experience Commerce, MRF’s digital agency has designed the campaign mechanics and mrfnvmix.com that went live in December. Using live-recorded biking sounds, the MRF NV Mix console is a whole new approach at creating music. From the thump of a Harley Davidson Street 750 to the scream of the KTM Duke, the sounds are a delight to the motorcycle crazy. The base tracks are a foot-tapping sequence themselves. The approach is to unite music and motorcycling.

The campaign is a 4-week celebration starting on December 3. Participants create their music on the console, share it on their profiles, gather as many likes for their track, complete their profile, which includes uploading a picture of their favourite bike and telling MRF in writing about their most extreme adventure.

Top 5 winners are chosen every week based on quality of track/profiles filled + the popularity of the track and final 20 will compete for the grand prize Honda CBR250R.

This campaign has already created buzz in the social space with a lot of engagement from participants. Famous bikers share their stories and their blogs on mrfnvmix.com. Blog 1 and Blog 2 are a few interesting blog posts you must check out.

An interesting way of further creating visibility for the campaign was to do a biker showdown contest – having competing bikers enroll for a community showdown.

And the Smart Riderz contest –

The company and the agency also worked on reaching out to a few well known bloggers who wrote about this contest creating a good amount of third party endorsement. Read here.

Positives

The digital agency unearthed a very fundamental insight about biking. For a biker the deep rumble of the engine, or just the sound of a Bullet passing by sets his pulse racing. This was as good as music to their ears. The thrill and passion of a bike ride is incomplete without the sounds the bike makes. This concept was ideal for the age group 18-30 that MRF wanted to target – who love music and excitement.

The uniqueness about this campaign is the live recording of the bike sounds. Tyres play an important role in generating the many sounds of bike. From on road screeches, rev to the off road journey through gravel and slush each sound is conspicuously different. The console had recorded sounds from bikes like KTM 200 Duke, Royal Enfield Classic 500, Yamaha R15, Harley Davidson Street 750 with the help of some special studio equipment.

The campaign certainly did add a degree of freshness and excitement to the country’s oldest tyre manufacturing company. It was good to see that the brand considered social media and the digital space as an option to reach out and speak to their target audience – the 18-30 years old crowd. This audience they are interested in Bollywood, EDM, Hip Hop as well as the inseparable sounds of Rock.

Well known biker, Urvashi Patole, founder of the first all-female motorcycle club The Bikerni, has spun some great mixes and shared it on Twitter encouraging her followers to experience this musical thrill. There have been endorsements by Rutavi Mehta – Founder of Photokhata and Suhai Chandok, TV presenter and actor who created their own music on the console.

Areas for improvement –

Compiling the tracks all together into an NV bike sounds album that would be available to be shared and bought online on the website could widen visibility & reach. This could be one of the elements on the website which could also be a revenue stream for the brand used to keep the website alive for passionate riders (as outlined by the brand as part of its plan after the campaign is over). Also this could be a yearly event, which could end with a bikers meet at the end of the year – the music showcased could be the best tracks created by biker communities using the online console. There could be an app created which could record new bike sounds – which bikers could download on their phones and record the sound of their bikes while on the go, which would further work as a constant brand recall somewhere at the back of the mind.

Conclusion –

A whooping 137,840,379 audiences have been reached during the ongoing campaign, where 90% of them are between 18-25 years of age. More than 20000 participants have sent in their entries – a mix of casual and expert riders. The campaign was probably one of the more creative campaigns that we have seen at all accounts, even though a little rough on the edges (especially when the sounds on the console were a little unrefined when reviewed from the perspective of a music lover).

While the MRF NV mix contest winners will be announced by the second week of January, the site will go on to be the destination for passionate riders. The aim is to not only cater to serious bikers but also give fun tidbits of information for casual ones. After all 5 friends on a bike going to a weekend destination also need a platform that helps them know smart things to do on the way. So post the campaign, the brand will kick off a Smart Riding Community and keep giving Bikers fun things to do. This is a great idea but the proof of the pudding will be in the eating.

Janice Goveas is a true blue Mumbaikar who loves her city, her food and her son. Janice blogs about her passion for food on ilivetoeatblog.wordpress.com and tweets on @janoella. A communications professional with over 11 years in public relations, she works consults with various startups, social entrepreneurs and mompreneurs.